Windowed Multitasking: Cornerstone by onskreen

Onskreen | Cornerstone
Cornerstone seems to be an interface alternative that can be baked into ROMs (as far as I can tell, that's the only way to get it). I'm having trouble finding any roms that currently utilize it, though I have seen this report that cyanogenmod was interested in it. I went searching for windowed multitasking shortly after I got my infinity, and found this, but no usable form of it.

My Transformer is kind of a big upgrade from my old netbook, a little bigger screen and a dramatically higher resolution, yet despite that, it's less capable of multitasking. I grant you, setting up multiple windows on my netbook in such cramped space wasn't a recommended use, and it was rarely pretty, but it worked and I did it all the time. Given the range of apps and widgets available, multitasking on android should be more feasible. I shouldn't need to swap between fullscreen programs to mess with simple things like my mp3 controls, to switch playlists, podcasts, skip an entry or monitor a feed/email or any number of other things. Cornerstone looks brilliant. It doesn't look as flexible as what I'd ultimately like to see, but it's a great start. I have little desire to put an alternate rom on my transformer, especially before the warranty runs out, but a feature like this one would tempt me sorely.

I hope this is the future of Android, but I suspect despite being tantalizingly close, I won't ever get to use it. The Cornerstone source hasn't been updated in a many months, and I see no cyanogen references to it since the spring. Other interested posters seem to think it's all but abandoned. And that's a real shame.

First recent news I've seen on this. Everything else is from back in the spring. It's a horrible tale of why cornerstone failed, and a tiny note of hope thanks to Samsung.

Samsung is working as hard as they can to make sure that their version of Android is different than the rest. This means building features that you dont see anywhere else, like Multi-Window on the Galaxy Note 10.1 and the Samsung Galaxy Note 2. This function does just what you expect  it allows users to run two apps side-by-side in a split-screen. It doesnt work for every app, but many third party apps are permitted to be loaded side by side with a handful of software that Samsung has optimized for use.

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When Cyanogen started exploring adding cornerstone into CM as an option for users, Google brought on the threats to stop them:

In a conversation with Steve Kondik on Google+, Hackborn commented that if the team started making CM behave in a fundamentally different way than stock Android, they were going to need to start doing things to prevent CM from impacting the Android app ecosystem. She continued to suggest that one way they might accomplish this would be to restrict how users could interact with Market apps while running CM.

An example of this could be as minor as not allowing CM users to rate apps and publish reviews, but could also be as severe as to completely restrict CM users from the Google Play Store. The Android team would be able to easily justify removing Play Store access, since CyanogenMod ROMs do not pass the Android Compatibility Test Suite. It is worth pointing out that there is no way for CyanogenMod to pass the Android CTS at the moment, since there are no devices running CyanogenMod at the time of purchase.

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And a little hope:

Cornerstone was never included in CyanogenMod, though the lack of a response from Google when asked about Multi-Window may cause the team to reconsider. Steve Kondik, more commonly known in the Android community as Cyanogen, noted in quick response to Hackborn back in February that Cornerstone was never intended to be a default configuration for CyanogenMod, rather something that the user would need to choose to use. Split-screen functionality has been something that both Android and iOS enthusiasts have desired for some time. In fact, jailbroken iPads can operate in a windowed experience not unlike Cornerstone (after a bit of customization).

This show of force is not commonly seen from Google, and as far as I can tell there have been no further communications between Google and CyanogenMod on the subject. Pressure from Google caused the CyanogenMod team to shelf the Cornerstone system, and even now in CM 10 theres no mention of Cornerstone making a comeback. In fact, the last update to Cornerstone from the developers that were originally working on it was only weeks after the CM team were advised not to pursue it. With the release of Multi-Window and the new Android design guidelines to help apps work on many different screen sizes, maybe there is finally room in Android for something like Cornerstone.

I found another application that attempts to provide some kind of windowed multitasking. At least, I think that's what's going on. BSPlayer purports to play videos in a pop-up window. [video=youtube;A55FTZ3WemI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A55FTZ3WemI&feature=player_embedded[/video]

Multi-windows would be nice on a tablet, but I'm not quite sure what value it would have (for me) on a smartphone, even a 5" one. What I would like is the capability that Linux has of opening a program on one desktop (home screen) and leave it open and running full screen while switching to a different desktop or having programs be minimized to tabs that could be used to pop up a particular running program full screen. I just don't see wanting to use a program while it is less than full screen (on a phone), especially if it needs to pop up a keyboard. I guess the one case for me might be cutting and pasting between programs.

The other possibility might be to have desktops not be discrete... have one long desktop you could slide and have anything arranged on it anywhere you want (a program window could straddle what might now be two desktops). It would require the slide control to be both smooth and precise.

Probably the above just illustrates why no one asks me to design their smartphones. ;-)

I'm mostly just glad to see that there's an awareness of the demand for, not just the ability of the OS to juggle tasks, but for the user to do so too. I hope Google gets the message and integrates some options into android directly. As their first instinct appeared to be to force the genie back in the bottle, I hope growing pressure from their partners makes them rethink.

I finally got around to loading a video on my E4GT and trying out BS Player. I encoded a DVD using Handbrake's High Profile preset. The video played beautifully. Controls are nice (typical of 2 or 3 other video players I've tried). I was pleasantly surprised at how well the pop-out works. I was able to watch the video in a pop-out window while using other apps. No hiccups, bumps, or bruises along the way. I'm considering upgrading to the paid version.